7 Deadliest E-Commerce Mistakes that Will Haunt Your Business

— December 16, 2018

The idea of starting an e-commerce venture is fun!

And because the estimates say it’s a trillion dollar market, you can profit big from it.

But here’s the thing:

The industry is not all rainbows and unicorns.

Without a solid plan in place, you’re lucky to experience small bumps along the way. Nothing that you can’t fix.

The rest, though, can be catastrophic and can bring your business to the ground!

But you know what?

You can always turn your cards around.

In case mistakes fall in your lap, all you need to do is to find a way to overcome them.

Here, you will learn the most common e-commerce mistakes that site owners make and how you can avoid or fix them.

1. Selling the wrong product

It’s common to think that, just because you have a product, you can immediately profit off it.

While your idealism is admirable, that’s not how things always work.

The e-commerce industry may be lucrative but it’s not some “get-rich-quick” place.

In reality, you have to put in the work.

This means you need to research about a product first.

Find out if there’s a market for it and a decent — if not high — demand for it.

A product may seem right to you. But if nobody wants to buy it, it’s the wrong one.

2. Non-existent branding

It’s time to ditch the idea that branding is only about owning a unique name or logo.

Instead, think of your brand as your online business’ personality. And start giving importance to it.

More than 70% of brand managers even say it’s more valuable than direct sales.

If your branding is non-existent, you need to work on it.

Why?

Successful branding yields excellent results!

And an improved image and increased customer loyalty are among these results.

3. Untrustworthiness

Try putting yourself in the situation of a customer.

Would you buy from a shady seller?

If someone’s shady, he may be bogus — even if he’s not.

So start building trust and credibility. And you can do that by establishing social proof.

You can include consumer reviews and star ratings on your site, for example.

That’s what Ovo Energy did. And its conversion rate went up by 18%.

4. Ordering from your site is a pain

Did you know 51% of the adult population makes purchases using their smartphones?

This means, you should optimize your online store for mobiles to help boost sales.

If you will not do that, you’ll be committing one of the most common e-commerce mistakes. And you’re giving your customers a reason to shop somewhere else.

Also, fixing your site so you can accommodate mobile users is not all that you can do.

Here’s a checklist that will gear up your site for the better:

• Make navigation easy. Put ‘back’ and ‘next’ buttons where they should be so your customers can move from one section to another on your site with ease.
• Publish compelling product descriptions. And share useful information like what the product is for and manufacturing details.
• Feature high-res images of your products. Because people prefer to see what they will buy.
• Speed up and simplify the checkout process. 9% of people will abandon their shopping carts if checkout is long and confusing.

5. Shipping issues

Outsourcing services to drop shipping and third-party fulfillment providers is the answer.

But if you have the capital to buy items for your inventory, go with third-party fulfillment.

It’s your best course of action if you’re inexperienced with shipping or you choose not to handle shipping, at all.

This way, you can make bigger profits and reduce ship times. You will also have better control over the products in your inventory!

6. Underdeveloped marketing strategy

There’s nothing wrong about seeing your online business as a work in progress.

But if you treat it as such for the long haul, don’t expect it to prosper.

The workaround?

Create a solid marketing strategy and develop it.

Sharelov has your back if you need help.

It’s a marketing platform with tools to manage marketing campaigns and strategies. This way, you can keep them organized.

7. Not taking action to results

If you’re producing results, it means something’s happening.

But producing results is not as important as what you will do with these results.

To get the ball rolling, check out Ecommerce Analytics for Absolute Beginners by Shopify.

It’s a 7-chapter guide with key information about e-commerce analytics. If you have no idea how e-commerce analytics can help you out, let this free guide tell you.

Conclusion

Mistakes are part of growing a business.

However, let’s get one thing straight:

If you can avoid making a mistake especially in your e-commerce business, then you should always make that choice!

You don’t have to find out for yourself and risk your entire business because you believe mistakes are growing pains.

Therefore, if you want to expedite the growth of your online store, you need to take the e-commerce mistakes above to heart and never – ever – commit them.

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